How to wear pale skinny jeans when you’re not skinny

Most of us have now figured out the trick to wearing skinny jeans when you’re not particularly, ahem, skinny, is to wear a high waisted or medium rise cut to prevent muffin top, and it’s ugly cousin, the dreaded camel humps. Not sure what camel humps are? It’s a Kimba term to describe the large mounds that appear above the waistband of pants that are just too tight, but from the back view. You can thank me later

The other trick is to wear dark denim and longer line flattering tops. But what if you secretly yearn to wear pale skinnies? I’ve got the answer for you!

I’ve been going crazy for coloured denim skinnies, including the most gorgeous floral pair from ASOS. I’ve even ventured into coloured cord skinnies. But one look I’ve shied away from is the very pale colours. That was until I saw these gorgeous J Brand Super Skinny Coated Sparkle Lilac from The Iconic reduced from $245 to about $70. One pair left in my size, $10 discount voucher applied, and before I knew it, they were in my hot little hands.

But whilst I simply loved them – lilac! sparkle! coated denim! sparkle! absolutely bargainous! sparkle! – I was unsure of how exactly I was going to wear them without making my legs look like two uncooked pork sausages, albeit sparkly uncooked pork sausages.

Just for your benefit (and, um, mine), I tried out a few outfits. I’ve figured out the best way to rock them is to make yourself look as long and lean as possible.

How I achieved this was by wearing similar pale coloured simple shoes and adding detail with long dark tops layered over each other. How does this work? Well, by wearing the pale coloured shoes with the pale coloured pants, I’m continuing the line. If I’d worn dark shoes, it would have emphasised the difference between my pale denim-clad legs and my feet.

Adding the long line patterned top covers the thigh and tummy regions so that the slimmest part of my legs are on display in the pale denim. As the lower layer is a scoop neck, it displays my décolletage, which is another visual distraction technique.

The next layer of a long patterned kimono-style dress worn as a jacket – a long flowy cardigan, light car coat or cape would work equally well – draws the eye upward and continues the long lean lines. The pattern on pattern creates interest and the open jacket visually slims the body.

In the above image, I’ve switched the the kimono jacket for a cropped chunky cardigan. This achieves the same objective with the long patterned top doing its great job of disappearing my thigh-tacular and tummy-tastic regions, whilst the boxy shape of the chunky cardigan – a Chanel-inspired jacket would also work perfectly – stops just on my hipbones. This wide-over-long trick creates another great visual illusion. The actual cardigan, with the fabulous tangerine colour and multicoloured buttons, performs another magic trick by drawing the eye upwards and away from those pale pink thighs.

Spooky fence

With Birthday Boyo – I take no responsibility for this ensemble

Yes, I have an ankle. Two of them actually.

Mummy blogger? Mummy ninja!

My J Brand Sparkle Lilac’s first outing was for Boyo’s birthday party. I’ve teamed what ICE call a skater dress and what I call a swing top, which does an excellent job of emphasising the good bits and disguising my not so favourite bits, but would certainly scare small children if I wore it as a dress.

Because we were going bowling and I really loathe bowling shoes, I wore some old school Reebok trainers, breaking my own rule outlined above about wearing a similarly coloured shoe to extend the leg line. I’ve got around this by cuffing the jean to reveal my ankle, the slimmest part of my leg, and I think it works. Not least because the trainers are just too cool for school.

Another outfit featuring pale skinnies. This time, Rag & Bone skinny cords in Eggshell (thank you Shopbop 70% off sale). The white toecaps of the Converse tie back in with the pale pants, and the long swing top in bright cobalt teamed with an amazing cape creates the same visual illusion as the printed tank and kimono.

Have you been brave enough to try pale skinnies? Do you think these tips might help you? Are you obsessed with 70% designer sales like me?

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You can click here to read the Kimba Likes Keeping it Real Policy. I was not remunerated for this post and all items were purchased by my own fair hand, excluding the lovely Something Else piece, which I received, along with other items, for this Fashionista Depot post. You can trust Kimba Likes to keep it real. You can click here to read the Kimba Likes Affiliate Disclosure Policy.